[A crucial issue in asset pricing is to understand the relative importance of discount rate (DR) news and cash flow (CF) news in driving the time-series and cross-sectional variations of stock returns. Many studies directly estimate the DR news but back out the CF news as the residual. We argue that this approach has a serious limitation because the DR news cannot be accurately measured due to the small predictive power, and the CF news, as the residual, inherits the large misspecification error of the DR news. We apply this residualbased decomposition approach to Treasury bonds and equities and find results that are either counterintuitive or unrobust. Potential solutions, including modeling both DR news and CF news directly, the Bayesian model averaging approach, and the principal component analysis, are explored.]

A disconcerting, albeit generally accepted, finding is that aggregate stock returns are predictable by dividend yield but dividend growth is unpredictable. I show that part of this lack of dividend growth predictability stems from how dividend growth is constructed. I then show a dramatic reversal of predictability in the 134 years during 1872–2005: stock returns are largely unpredictable in the first seven decades, but become predictable in the postwar period; dividend growth is strongly predictable in the prewar years but this predictability disappears in the postwar years. New evidence on the predictability of long-run returns and dividend growth is also shown.

[A central issue in finance is whether stock prices move because of revisions in expected cash flows or discount rates, and by how much of each. Using direct cash flow forecasts, we show that stock returns have a significant cash flow news component whose importance increases with the investment horizon. For horizons over two years, cash flow news is more important. These conclusions hold at both the firm and aggregate levels, and diversification plays a secondary role in affecting the relative importance of cash flow and discount rate news. Our findings highlight the importance of cash flows in asset pricing.]

[We construct firm-specific measures of expected equity returns using corporate bond yields, and replace standard ex post average returns with our expected-return measures in asset pricing tests. We find that the market beta is significantly priced in the cross section of expected returns. The expected size and value premiums are positive and countercyclical, but there is no evidence of positive expected momentum profits.]

[Structural models of default calibrated to historical default rates, recovery rates, and Sharpe ratios typically generate Baa-Aaa credit spreads that are significantly below historical values. However, this "credit spread puzzle" can be resolved if one accounts for the fact that default rates and Sharpe ratios strongly covary; both are high during recessions and low during booms. As a specific example, we investigate credit spread implications of the Campbell and Cochrane (1999) pricing kernel calibrated to equity returns and aggregate consumption data. Identifying the historical surplus consumption ratio from aggregate consumption data, we find that the implied level and time variation of spreads match historical levels well.]

Within the standard search and matching model, time-to-build implies that high aggregate risk premiums should forecast low employment growth in the short run but high employment growth in the long run. If there is also time-to-plan, high risk premiums should forecast low net hiring rates in the short run but high net hiring rates in the long run. Our evidence indicates two-quarter time-to-build in the aggregate payroll data, no time-to-plan in the aggregate hiring data, but two-quarter time-to-plan in the job creation data for manufacturing firms. High payroll growth and high net job creation rate in manufacturing also forecast low stock market excess returns at business cycle frequencies.

Structural models of default calibrated to historical default rates, recovery rates, and Sharpe ratios typically generate Baa-Aaa credit spreads that are significantly below historical values. However, this "credit spread puzzle" can be resolved if one accounts for the fact that default rates and Sharpe ratios strongly covary; both are high during recessions and low during booms. As a specific example, we investigate credit spread implications of the Campbell and Cochrane (1999) pricing kernel calibrated to equity returns and aggregate consumption data. Identifying the historical surplus consumption ratio from aggregate consumption data, we find that the implied level and time variation of spreads match historical levels well.

A crucial issue in asset pricing is to understand the relative importance of discount rate (DR) news and cash flow (CF) news in driving the time-series and cross-sectional variations of stock returns. Many studies directly estimate the DR news but back out the CF news as the residual. We argue that this approach has a serious limitation because the DR news cannot be accurately measured due to the small predictive power, and the CF news, as the residual, inherits the large misspecification error of the DR news. We apply this residual-based decomposition approach to Treasury bonds and equities and find results that are either counterintuitive or unrobust. Potential solutions, including modeling both DR news and CF news directly, the Bayesian model averaging approach, and the principal component analysis, are explored. The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected], Oxford University Press.

ABSTRACT Debtholders’ demand has been widely discussed as a key determinant of conservatism but clear causal evidence is not yet established. Using a natural experiment setting, wherein a Delaware court ruled that the fiduciary duties of directors in near insolvent Delaware companies extend to creditors, we predict and find that firms subject to the ruling significantly increased their accounting conservatism. In addition, our results suggest that the increase in conservatism is more pronounced in near insolvent Delaware firms with stronger boards, confirming that the court ruling takes effect through the channel of the board of directors. Our results are robust to using alternative measures of conservatism and near insolvency status, and controlling for potential confounding factors and other stakeholders’ demand for conservatism. Overall, our study provides empirical evidence to support the causal relation between debtholders’ demand and accounting conservatism previously suggested in the literature, and offers some insights into the role of the board of directors in financial reporting.